


Through Onlooking Eyes

by Aelys_Althea



Series: From Slips To Steps [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Fluff, Long-Awaited Meetings, M/M, Nostalgia, Past Memories, Reminiscence, Teachers, mentions of off-screen child abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-25
Updated: 2016-06-25
Packaged: 2018-07-18 06:25:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7303126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aelys_Althea/pseuds/Aelys_Althea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some students refuse to be forgotten. </p><p>For Tovi Martinoff, Harry Defaux was one of those students.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Through Onlooking Eyes

Some children refused to be forgotten.

That was the conclusion that Tovi Martinoff had reached after nearly ten years of teaching. Some children passed through the ranks, a brief flicker of enthusiasm and bubbling youth, and were forgotten upon their departure, often even their faces lost to the pool of masses.

Some children, however, remained captured in memory, like a mosquito trapped within an amber fossil: static and unchanging despite the alterations of the world around them.

There was Isabella Bois. She was a vibrant girl. Not altogether exceptional in her academics, but for some reason Tovi remembered her even after so long, after nearly a decade had passed since teaching the twelve year old. His memory of her would remain young and vibrant, despite the reality that she would be in her early twenties by now.

He couldn't pinpoint exactly what it was that held his memory fast when it came to Isabella. It could have been simply the wide, toothy smile that she turned on him whenever he entered the classroom, a welcome relief from the bored faces of his other science students. It could have been the way she would always leave a little poem on the top right hand corner of her test papers, four lines of rhymes and tongue-tying pieces that brought a welcome reprieve from the monotony of papers and the frustration of marking a little red cross beside silly mistakes.

Tovi thought it was most likely, however due to the final words he'd heard from the little girl. She'd transferred schools at the end of the year, and on her last day she had departed the class by-passing his desk.

"Good-bye, Mr Martinoff. I'll really miss you. You're the best teacher I've ever had, and I'm not just saying that."

And then she'd left. It was the first time Tovi had ever been told he was someone's 'best teacher'. The memory sung within him even ten years on.

There was Petey Paget, too. The boy had been Tovi's student in his second year of teaching, yet in spite of that he still remembered him clearly. He was a loud child, with a voice far too deep for a thirteen year old, and mostly Tovi remembered him for all the wrong reasons. He was disruptive in class, was constantly launching stationary at his fellows, and rarely – if ever – handed his classwork in. And that was to say nothing of his exam papers.

When Tovi had taken Petey aside to question his dedication to his studies, the boy had merely shrugged, scuffing his shoe on the floor idly and avoiding Tovi's eyes. He'd been oddly subdued. "Don't really care so much about school."

"And why is that, Petey? Don't you think it could help you in the future, to get a job or chase your dream career?"

Another shrug and the boy had shifted his gaze out the window. There was a soft, wistful cast to his expression that Tovi had found astounding on his usually objectionable face, but it was shaken loose moments later as Petey shook his head in dissent. "No, I don't have one of them. Sorry, teach, you're trying the wrong tactic. Preaching to the wrong crowd." And with a smirk, Tovi had been unable to get anything further from the boy.

What had been remarkable about Petey, however, was what Tovi had seen nearly a year later. He didn't have the boy in his class any longer, for which he was secretly grateful. There was unanimous agreement amongst the staff that the boy would likely end up in some dead-end job if not in jail. Tovi never partook in such conversations – it didn't feel fair to the boy – though he couldn't help but agree just a little.

At least, that was until he'd seen Petey for the first time outside of school. He remembered that night so clearly. It had been raining and miserable, nightfall before its time, and he had sorely regretted not picking up bread and milk that morning when the clouds had at least only been drizzling mournfully. The winds were horribly vicious, impinging upon even the attempted use of an umbrella.

In the parking lot of the grocery store, Tovi rubbed his palms together to shake off the chill and peered through his windscreen in the hopes of catching a break in the torrential downpour. He sat for nearly ten minutes without moving to little avail and had just decided to make the hated dash into the cover of the fluorescently-lit store when he saw them.

Petey was the tallest among the children, the oldest. There were three youngsters around him, two girls and a boy, and each was burdened under armloads of shopping bags. The children were drenched through, their jumpers sagging under the weight of rain seeping through stretched wool. Hair was plastered like matted caps upon each of their matching blond heads. Siblings, most likely, the lot of them.

Why were they out in such weather? Why were they lugging between them what appeared to be a week's worth of groceries? As Tovi watched, the smallest girl stumbled, slipping, and nearly went crashing onto the asphalt. Petey caught her at the last second, swinging her off her feet and somehow managing to juggle his own load and the little girl. In a motion that was far too fluid to be unpractised, the fourteen-year-old boy swung the girl into his arms, bags and all, and settled her on his hip. With a jerk of his head, Petey gestured that the other two to follow him across the parking lot.

Tovi was out of his car before he realised what he was doing. The rain was as cold as he'd expected, made even more so by the biting wind. He didn't care. Splashing through the puddles, through empty parking spaces, Tovi was calling through the afternoon gloom before the sound could have realistically reached the clutch of drenched children.

Petey saw him. Or heard him, he didn't know. Tovi didn't get a chance to talk to the boy but even at the distance he still was from him he saw the flicker of fear in the boy's eyes. A word that could have been – and most likely was – _run_ uttered inaudibly from his mouth, and Tovi barely got the chance to take another step towards them before the four children disappeared as if by magic.

It turned out Petey was a victim of neglect. Of child abuse, with a drunken alcoholic father and a mother who had fled the scene after dumping her most recent child in the terrified arms of her eldest son. It took time, much probing, and an endless supply of questions and reviews, of reports and investigations. Petey and his siblings were placed into foster care, their father charged with neglect and forced to pay for his treatment. Word had it in the staff room that he wasn't even allowed to see his children until he'd been dry for a year straight.

Petey resented him for it; Tovi could see it in the boy's eyes. He didn't understand why, exactly, wasn't sure where the loathing came from. But even with such resentment, Tovi knew he wouldn't have done any differently. The family had needed help, such only became more apparent the further embroiled Tovi became, and he couldn't bring himself to regret filing the report.

Petey was the first case of child abuse that Tovi encountered in his teaching career. Maybe that one case, so early in his career, simply set him in tune with the symptoms, sharpened his eyes to the signs. Or maybe it was that he didn't deny that which he saw; he couldn't, not when he knew there was something he could do to help, to better the lives of the children who sorely needed it. Petey was the first case he was involved in, but he wasn't the last.

There was Yasmine Rodriguez; she'd been a victim of physical abuse for her entire life. Tovi saw the signs and couldn't help but do something about it. There was James Petreson; his father had been sexually abusing his older sister for years and James was a wreck because of it. Gina Roy. Alex Donoughley. Willis McDonald. Each had their own case, their own story, and even if he could only help by reporting, by offering an ear or making those tentative inquiries, Tovi would continue to do so. He wasn't always right, thank God. More often than not it turned out that a recurring bruise here was simply a rather unfortunate accident of clumsiness, that the unusual twitches were a product of an incident that the child was already receiving counselling for.

But he always had to ask. To check, just in case.

They weren't all victims of abuse, his memorable students. Not in the slightest. Besides Isabella, Taylor Montague was simply one of the sweetest boy's he'd ever met, and one of the brightest. Jacquline Fitzgerald was the most spoilt, and he maintained that he remembered the girl so strongly simply because her voice was so persistently whiny that it demanded he _not_ forget it. Yes, there were others, liked and disliked both. The cherished and adored, the abused and uncared for.

Harry Defaux was one of the latter.

Tovi couldn't remember the first time he'd noticed Harry. Expected, really, considering the boy had been so quiet. It was only that he had to notice him at every roll call that Tovi actually knew the boy was in his class. Quiet, unobtrusive, always keeping to the far wall – never to the back with the disruptive children, but certainly never to the front of the class with the eager pick of the lot. There were the studious, the precocious, the rowdy. Those were the ones that demanded to be noticed. Everyone else just sort of… fell into the background. Not less important, but less noticeable.

It was, in fact, only when Harry came up to him, to speak to him directly, that Tovi actually took note of the boy. It was in his chemistry class, his high school first years, at a time when he'd shifted his teaching career to tailor towards the older students. After class. Tovi had settled behind his desk and set to marking the papers from the lesson, the children passing by him and already picking up volume before they had fully exited the class.

It was only by chance that he half glanced up and noticed Harry standing before his desk. He'd been nearly startled from his seat; he hadn't seen nor heard the boy approach. He was almost like a ghost, that little boy. So little, seemingly far too small to be in high school. The overly large jumper that he wore only enhanced the impression.

"Ah…" Tovi had to pause to remember the boy's name, a guilty pause as he'd had the class for weeks already and should have known in an instant. "'Arry. Can I help you with something?"

It may have been something about the boy's expression, or lack-there-of. The downward cast to his eyes, the way he kept his chin tucked to his chest even when he spoke. He didn't fiddle with his cuffs, or fidget from foot to foot, but even so Tovi got the distinct impression that Harry was uncomfortable in his presence.

For the life of him, Tovi could not remember even days later what Harry had approached him about. But disregarding that, he made a concerted effort to pay more attention to the boy. And in doing so, he noticed.

Something was wrong with Harry Defaux. Not academically, no; he was a bright boy, though he didn't seem intent to prove the fact. His marks were exemplary. He did not appear to be on the spectrum, but something was decidedly… off. Call it Tovi's radar, that which he had developed over the years, but like a buzzing mosquito that was initially unnoticed, upon recognising that abnormality the buzzing only seemed to grow louder, more prominent. More apparent.

Harry was resistant to talking to teachers. It could have just been his natural shyness, but for whatever reason he barely spoke a handful of words, even when called to speak. Which was incredibly rare, at that. The rest of the staff had little enough to say about him: he was quiet, did his work well, and didn't cause trouble. Three distinguishing characteristics that left all else as negligible features, of little consequence.

Tovi couldn't accept it. There was something wrong, and no amount of reading through the boy's school files, questioning the principal or subtle studying of the boy would unearth it. And so Tovi asked.

He saved it until the day the first years held chemistry as their last period.

"'Arry, would you mind seeing me after class?"

A unanimous " _oooooh"_ sounded amongst the children, followed by snickers as the students revelled in their own wit. Tovi had to suppress the urge to roll his eyes. Let them have their fun; it was hardly of consequence. Not if it didn't bother Harry, and glancing towards the quiet boy Tovi doubted that anything truly could. Or at least, anything his classmates could do.

Harry followed him to his staffroom with his characteristic silence. There were no other teachers present, not yet. There rarely were so shortly after class, which was why Tovi felt it safe to question the boy in the privacy of the room.

Folding himself into his seat at the desk, Tovi gestured to the accompanying seat. "Take a seat, 'Arry."

The boy paused, staring at him unresponsively. He was like a blank slate – not a flicker of emotion crossed his face, nor passed over his eyes, wide and staring behind their plain lenses. Slowly, almost hesitantly, the boy sunk into the proffered seat.

Tovi knew the best approach. Don't act suspicious. Don't be overly sympathetic. Do not ask direct questions. Always keep them open-ended, always allowing the child to direct the flow of the conversation.

"How are you, 'Arry?"

The boy peered up at him with that eternal blankness. "Fine, sir. How are you?"

Tovi smiled. "Very well, thank you for asking." He paused for a moment, considering how to approach the topic. "How are you finding school?"

"Very well, sir. Thank you."

Damn, but the boy was unresponsive. He didn't take the openings at all, didn't elaborate. Which was to be expected, really, Tovi considered. He was a quiet boy.

"That's good. I understand French is your second language? Where did you move from?"

"From England, sir. When I was eleven."

"Eleven? So about five years ago? Was it a family decision that drove your move?"

Harry was silent for a moment. Despite the blankness in his eyes, there was intelligence there, a sense of _knowing_. The boy was hardly stupid, and Tovi suspected he knew there was something behind to the questioning. "Yes, sir. A family decision."

"I'm sure it must have been a big change for you, even just learning a different language. Did you have difficulties learning?" He paused for a moment. "Did your uncle help you to learn?"

Again, that knowing silence. Harry spoke slowly when he responded. "Yes, sir. My uncle did teach me here and there. I picked up a lot of what I learnt through school."

"Oh, well that was nice of him. I expect you must be fairly close to your uncle, what with just the two of you living together."

Harry didn't reply this time. Somehow, though he made no visible movement, the boy seemed to sink into his seat. It seemed uncommonly large for his slight frame.

Tovi leant back in his own chair, rubbing a hand over his chin. _This is not going well_. "Do you enjoy living with your uncle, Harry? Have you ever though about moving back to England?"

Harry's chin had dropped to his chest once more. His dark fringe fell loose from the short braid at the nape of his neck and covered what little of his face Tovi could see. A faint mumble sounded, though nearly inaudible.

"I'm sorry, I didn't catch that."

"I said, why do you want to know, sir?"

Tovi pursed his lips. Yes, the boy certainly was aware. This was not going well at all. "I'm merely curious, 'Arry. You're one of my top students, and I had to wonder given that you're originally not from France." Harry didn't reply, so he continued. "How do you find it here, as compared to England? Is it very different do you think?"

Harry seemed to have taken a vow of silence. He didn't even look at Tovi, though there was nonetheless the distinct impression that he was listening. It was strange, really, how even without any expression whatsoever – no tensing of the shoulders, no shifting in his seat – the boy gave of an impression of such stark discomfort.

Tovi persisted as such. Gentle questions, nothing confronting. And yet Harry didn't speak. Despite himself, Tovi felt his frustration grow. He knew he shouldn't; frustration, anger, even overt nosiness, was more likely to drive victims of abuse into further retreat than entice them into replying. And yet… he felt it nonetheless.

Why wouldn't Harry just answer?

Why couldn't he see he was trying to help?

The boy was intelligent, Tovi knew. Just as he knew that intelligence held no part in the response of a victim of abuse. Yet against his better judgement, he felt his frustration mounting.

_Why won't you just let me help you?!_

And so he asked. With a forwardness that went against every rational thought and better judgment.

"'Arry, how is your relationship with your uncle?" He paused as Harry's chin jerked upwards, that eerie blankness wavering just slightly. Tovi fought the urge to hold his breath expectantly. "You can tell me. You can tell me the truth, of how it really is. I won't judge you, Harry. I'm only trying to help."

In that moment, it slipped. Just slightly, but enough to make a difference. That blank mask fell to reveal fear, terror, even, and more than that: resentment. The resentment that Tovi had seen in Petey's eyes for years after his case had been filed, until the boy left the school.

There was desperation. There was despair, hopelessness. Even guilt. And threading through it all was that paramount fear.

Tovi couldn't remember what happened after that. As hard as he tried, for whatever reason, he couldn't think how there conversation had ended. It irked him to no end that he simply couldn't remember how it had played out.

The issue was taken out of his hands, however. Shortly after that, so suddenly that the boy was gone before he even realised, Harry Defaux transferred from the school. Tovi could never quite understand the situation; it baffled him to no end, though his colleagues seemed to take the suddenness of the boy's disappearance in stride. As though it wasn't an issue. As though everything was _perfectly fine_.

The unobtrusive, quiet, bespectacled boy rapidly faded from the minds of those at the school. He had never been a large presence to begin with, so it was perhaps to be expected.

Yet Tovi never forgot.

_~ Ten Years Later ~_

"Damn, I forgot the pickles!"

Maria rustled through the plastic bags scattered around the trunk of their car as though she could find the unpurchased jar of preserves simply by searching hard enough. Tovi sighed, rolling his eyes, but the outcome was inevitable. How Maria forgot the pickles when she ate them with every single meal was beyond him, but somehow she managed.

"I'll go and get them," Tovi offered, placing his own bags in the trunk. Maria cast him a grateful glance that he replied with a smile before setting off at a jog back into the shopping centre. Despite his wife's forgetfulness, and the arduousness of compensating for it, Tovi would always be the first to offer to remedy the 'disastrous' situation.

After an inordinately long wait in the queue, Tovi was passing through the automatic doors once more. The summer sun was blinding after the artificial lighting of the store and he had to pause for a moment to gain his bearings.

It was likely only because of this that when the peal of laughter sounded his attention was caught.

Turning towards the sound, Tovi settled his eyes upon a young couple. At least, he assumed they were a couple, for he doubted that such intimacy would be so obviously displayed otherwise. What was astounding was that they were both men, yet seemed entirely comfortable with their display of affection. Tovi was not averse to same-sex relationships himself, yet neither was he ignorant. He knew that there was a surplus of individuals, of the general public, that sneered at homosexuality as though love, even in a less common union, could be disgusting.

The couple seemed oblivious to their surroundings. They looked to be in their mid-twenties, or thereabouts, and the taller blonde was wrapped like a vine around the shorter dark-haired man. They were both grinning widely at one another, murmuring in words too quiet to perceive over the twenty-foot distance between them and Tovi. As he watched, the blonde placed a quick kiss upon his lover's forehead and muttered something else that set the shorter man into heartfelt laughter once more. It was beautiful to watch, the pure joy, the obvious love of the scene that disregarded their surroundings so completely. Tovi himself quite forgot his haste to return to his wife's side.

Another handful of words were exchanged before the blonde – after stealing a kiss on the lips – spun on his heel and trotted into the grocery store. The dark-haired man was left shaking his head and rolling his eyes in his wake, though the smile that still spread widely across his face bellied any true exasperation.

Tovi wasn't sure which of them realised it first. He suspected it must have been Harry, for the man that had been the quiet shadow of a boy had disappeared. It was likely only the flare of recognition in the young man's eyes, absent of the glasses that once hid them, that jogged his memory.

It was Harry who approached him rather than the other way around. Slowly at first, then with more confidence. Tovi was so caught up in staring, in comparing him to the image he held of him in his memory, that he barely noticed when he stopped before him.

Harry was still slender. Still short, shorter than average, and he still wore his hair long and braided, though in an elaborate twist that held nothing on the scruffy tie he used to wear. But other than that there was so little similar that even having just undergone the revelation himself Tovi was surprised that he recognised him.

For the face was different. Not in shape, no, but in the display of blossoming expression that was so genuine it was almost like a stage show in performance. There was uncertainty at first, wariness, but that faded into determination, resolution, and something else. He seemed almost… delighted. To see Tovi? Not a flicker of resentment marred his features.

They stared at each other in silence for a few moments, barely two feet from one another. Harry's smile, faded slightly as he approached, sprung anew. _"Monsieur_ Martinoff, isn't it?"

Blinking rapidly, Tovi nodded his head. "Please, I haven't been your teacher for years. Call me Tovi. It's 'Arry, isn't it? Harry Defaux?"

Harry cocked his head, as though considering, then shrugged one shoulder. "Harry Potter, actually. I don't use my uncle's name anymore."

The words were like a bursting sun of wonder, of relief, that flared in Tovi's chest. The connotations of such were so fiercely pronounced. "You don't? Oh, so…?"

"My parents were Potters. I've been using their name for nearly ten years now."

"That's… well, that's wonderful!"

There was so much hidden meaning, so many unspoken words that were exchanged between them in that simple phrase. Words that didn't need to be spoken. Harry's smile became grateful. That smile… an actual smile. It should have looked foreign coming from the once blank-faced boy but he wore it so well.

_He has something to smile about._

"Yeah, it really is," Harry said, and impossibly that smile widened further.

They didn't get a chance to say more, to speak further to one another. In that brief pause after Harry spoke, when they simply stared in faint disbelief, sinking into nostalgia, the blond man appeared once more, hands distinctly empty of shopping bags.

He was talking in English when he stepped out of the grocery store, something that sounded frustrated, a complaint maybe. Tovi himself wasn't particularly fluent in the language, and the young man was speaking too quickly for him to grasp a word of it. He was obviously talking to Harry, however, as Harry turned to him the moment he addressed him. At a few words in reply the blonde silenced and, falling into place beside Harry, turned curiously towards Tovi.

" _Monsieur_ – Tovi, this is my partner, Draco." Harry gestured to the blonde, who nodded his head and gave a formal smile. "Draco, this is one of my teachers from high school. _Monsieur_ Martinoff, you remember? I told you about him?"

Tovi drew his glance from the mild interest on the blonde's – Draco's – face towards Harry. It was a bit of a shock, but… the boy remembered him too. Had spoken of him.

Harry was saying something, something that Tovi had nearly missed in his surprise, and he had to dredge through the half-heard words to discern what they were. "Yes. Yes, it was lovely to see you too, 'Arry." He paused, and the reality set in. "Truly, really wonderful. I'm so happy to see you're doing so well."

The smile Harry gave him was smaller this time, but no less heartfelt. How did someone say so much with a simple smile? "Thank you, sir. Tovi." He leant slightly into Draco's side and the pair shared a meaningful stare, communicating so knowingly, that Tovi didn't think he could manage as much even with Maria. Draco slung his arm over Harry's shoulders as the shorter man turned back to him. "I really mean it. You did more for me than you'll ever know. I wouldn't be where I am today without you."

Tovi blinked, surprised once more. "Me? What did I do?"

Harry shrugged, turning his eyes to his toes. Not that hidden shrinking he'd done in the past, but in measured thoughtfulness. "I guess you could say you gave me the nudge I needed."

The couple left shortly after, with a farewell and the hopes of maybe seeing one another again around the city sometime, if chance permitted. As Tovi clambered back into his car, he was lost in thought, in memory, and barely heard the word of thanks Maria gave him when he handed over the pickles. His drive home was remarkably brighter than he'd expected it to be.

For some children refused to be forgotten.

And as it happened, apparently some teachers denied such forgetfulness too.

_~The End of From Slips To Steps~_

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Please leave a comment! Thanks, lovelies :)


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